Without getting directly into the Canadian Labor Market, a business visitor is an alien national who travels to Canada in order to undertake activities relating to an international business. A business visitor may engage in some activities like:

  • attending a business meeting or conference or conducting site visits to observe
  • attending a product and sales training conducted by a Canadian parent company or a distributor
  • dealing with an after sales agreement
  • buying goods in Canada for a foreign company

Qualifications for Business Visitors

  1. Applicants as business visitors must establish that their main source of income and their businesses are outside of Canada.
  2. Business visitors must have no criminal records or health-based inadmissibility, otherwise they will have to apply for a Temporary Resident permit.

Essential documentations required

  • Canadian organization’s invitation to a foreign applicant
  • Letter from a foreign company attesting that the applicant is employed by them on a full time basis
  • A verification that the applicants will not come to Canada for employment purposes
  • Include a copy of the After-Sales Agreement if any
  • A copy of Passport data page
  • A resume showing that the applicants have sufficient experience to conduct a training and they are properly employed by a foreign company and are only entering Canada for purposes of conducting a training for a particular product
  • An itinerary showing activities from entry to exit from Canada
  • Proof to establish sufficient ties to the applicants’ home country

Visitor Visa Exemptions

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has outlined the visitor-visa exempt countries as follows:

  • Citizens of Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Botswana, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel (National Passport holders only), Italy, Japan, Korea (Republic of), Latvia (Republic of), Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Slovenia, Switzerland, United States, and Western Samoa
  • Lawful US permanent residents who are in possession of their alien registration card (Green card) or can provide other evidence of permanent residence;
  • British citizens and British Citizens overseas who are re-admissible to the United Kingdom;
  • Citizens from British dependent territories who derive their citizenship by birth, descent, registration or naturalization in one of the British dependent territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, St. Helena or the Turks and Caicos Islands;
  • Holders of British National (Overseas) Passport issued by the United Kingdom Government to persons who were born, naturalized, or registered in Hong Kong;
  • British subjects who hold a passport issued by the United Kingdom and who have the “right of abode” there
  • persons holding a valid and subsisting Special Administrative Region passport issued by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China;
  • Holders of passports or travel documents issued by the Holy See;
  • Persons possessing an ordinary passport issued by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that includes their personal identification number.

The constant changes made to immigration policies in Canada are giving rise to many complicated areas in immigration and visa applications, that serve as barriers to people with immigration objectives.

Specializing in immigration and visa application preparations for over 15 years, VisaPlace Legal undertakes more than just collecting documents and submitting forms to an immigration officer. The firm uses all possible remedies and legal means to persuade and inform an immigration officer of an applicant’s real intention for coming to Canada.

For free assessment of your case, please call 1-866-929-0991 or email [email protected].